


Attack on Atlantis

by ScarlettSiren



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, Mermaids, merfolk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 08:36:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarlettSiren/pseuds/ScarlettSiren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. The Atlanteans were a proud race, until they started hiding behind their domes of glass and steel. Miles below the ocean, they forgot how the waves crashed, what the sun felt like, how the air smelled. They lived in peace, even if in hiding, until the day the Colossal came.</p><p>On that day, merkind received a grim reminder. They lived in fear of the sharks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Attack on Atlantis

**Author's Note:**

> This is really only a summary re-write of the first half of the show in the format of this AU. Just a warning this is kind of a crack-fic that takes itself a little too seriously. I recommend that you do NOT take it seriously. I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. If you sent me this prompt on tumblr please tell me and I will properly gift it here. And as for vilifying sharks... they _are_ predators of the ocean. I don't think _humans_ should exterminate them in droves but if merfolk are being attacked by them, they have every right to defend themselves! Sorry I just really like sharks and I hate making them the bad guys for this but dolphins weren't an option and neither were orcas since I needed them to be fish, not mammals.
> 
> See the art on my tumblr, thescarlettfangirl. It's tagged 'fic: attack on atlantis'.

The Atlanteans used to be a proud race.

Children of both the land and sea, they were born with a set of lungs to breathe air and gills to breathe in water, their bodies able to adapt to land but made to withstand the pressures in the depths of the ocean where they made their homes. Humans from the navel up, finned from the navel down, they lived in relative peace miles beneath the waves.

But something lurked, something from somewhere deep and ancient, a beast swift as the current, strong as a riptide, with teeth as sharp as shattered barnacles and a taste for mer-flesh. These massive fish were the ocean's most fearsome predator, known to them as sharks.

Atlantis lived in fear of these titans of the deep.

They built domes, steel and glass encompassing their homes and palaces across the reefs. The largest, Dome Triton, the strongest, Dome Poseidon, and the smallest, Dome Neptune. Worshipped by some as gods of protection, they kept Atlantis safe. But their lungs ached with disuse, barred from visiting the surface world by their self-made prison and the monsters that lurked beyond.

The merfolk survived behind their cages, until the day when _it_ came. For all their advances and all their precautions, it was no use against this new enemy. This massive beast larger by far than any shark before it, stripped of its flesh due to its sheer size... they dubbed it, the Colossal. This megalodon, with one snap of its teeth, had torn away the steel bars between panes of meter-thick glass where the seawater circulated into the city, leaving it completely exposed. The smaller sharks flowed in like a riptide and the merfolk were trapped like netted fish for the slaughter.

The Stationary guard was obliterated, tinging the waters red and drawing yet more sharks. The merfolk fled into the inner walls, fortifying their defenses and escaping where they could as droves of their people were ripped to shreds by those razor-like teeth.

It was on that day merkind received a grim reminder. They lived in fear of the sharks.  
\- - -

Years later, Eren Jaeger, a young merman from the outer dome, completed his training with the military. Since that infamous day when the Colossal came, a cataclysmic event that shook the very foundations of mer-society and resulted in the death of Eren's mother, many had joined the army as if in some form of revenge. After the fall of Dome Triton, hundreds of thousands of merfolk had fled to the inner walls. But food was scarce as it was and the loss of the largest dome had only made it worse. Over two hundred thousand mers were forced to bear arms and leave the walls to 'fight' the sharks, a political move that was nothing more than a slaughter. They were completely decimated, but there was now less of a food shortage.

There was a surge in military trainees as the children of Dome Triton came of age, Eren among these mers. He and his adopted sister Mikasa, along with their childhood friend, Armin, began training the moment they were old enough. In time, they learned to use the maneuver gear; a system worn by soldiers at the small of the back comprised of fan propellers and harpooned hook-shots which gave mers an advantage of speed that matched the sharks they would fight. They trained with spears and harpoons, learning that the only way to kill a shark was to pierce through its flesh in the spot just in front of its dorsal fin. Any other wound would heal instantly.

They trained long into the night after the changing of the tides, day after day with no reprieve. Any who had thought the training would be simple due to the utter failure of the Stationary Guard those years ago found that illusion shattered. Many joined the army with the hope of scoring high enough to be brought into the Military Police; the "elite" guard who remained behind the protection of Dome Neptune, providing security for government officials. They never saw sharks that far inside the domes, they were paid well and it was the most coveted post in the entire army.

Eren didn't want to join the Military Police. His only goal was to join the Survey Corps; the only division of the military that journeyed beyond the domes. And after years of training and months of testing, he finally got his wish.

Only, it wasn't in the way he had expected. He was fresh out of training when the domes were attacked once again by the Colossal Shark and chaos erupted. Suddenly, a new enemy had appeared; a shark with a hammer-shaped head and scales like steel. An Armored Shark, which torpedoed through the wall's defenses and shattered the bars like a tidal wave incarnate.

Eren fought with the rest of the trainees and when he thought that he would surely die, swallowed by a massive shark in an attempt I save Armin's life, something incredible happened. A larger shark, sleek and fearsome with sharply-pointed fins and glowing eyes burst forth from the original shark and went on a rampage, ripping to shreds any shark that crossed its path. It raged with the power of a monsoon, storming through the sharks like a hurricane.

It was only after the silt cleared and he stood before a scared, armed regiment that Eren realized the shark had been _him_.

The Rogue shark, they called him. They wanted to execute him, fearing what he was capable of, but one man stood in his defense. The commander of the Survey Corps, Erwin Smith. He insisted they could control Eren's shark form, use it to fight the other sharks, finally take a stand for merkind.

That was when he met Levi.

Levi was the most notorious soldier in the Corps. Merkind's Strongest, they called him. He had killed more sharks than most of his subordinates combined and it had earned him the rank of Lance Corporal. He was the fastest swimmer, the strongest fighter and the overall most skilled soldier in the entire army. Of course, his first impression of the man hadn’t been pleasant: tied up before a judge and facing possible execution, Levi and Erwin schemed to save him in the only way they knew how. The Lance Corporal beat him until he was bloodied and bruised, pinned under the man’s tail as he convinced the judge that he could be trained with a heavy hand and brutal force. The judge agreed, and Eren went with the Survey Corps.

Eren supposed Levi came across as cold and unkind to most, but he truly cared for his squad. Even if Hanji was up to so-called ‘mad-scientist’ antics, rambling about sharks for hours, or Oluo was flirting too heavily with Petra in his presence, he was still fiercely protective of each and every one of them, and it showed in the way he fought.

Training hadn’t prepared them for this, not even remotely…not when you were in the thick of it, flying through the water with the maneuver gear, brandishing your harpoons against the snapping jaws of a 10-meter shark. In that moment when you realized the shark might dodge your strike, that missing your mark meant true and certain death, that it wasn’t just an exercise anymore, the fear could easily take hold. But Eren felt no fear…only anger as he swore to carve through every shark until the last one was dead, rotting on the ocean floor. And while Eren made his promises, Levi swept by like an undercurrent and slaughtered every shark in his path.

Most of the military branches wore their symbols on their backs or chests on scraps of fabric, remnants of the world above which reminded them what they were fighting to achieve. But the Survey Corps, notoriously being comprised of the strongest and fiercest of Atlantis’s warriors, had a tradition of tattooing their symbol onto their bodies permanently with urchin spine and octopus ink. Commander Erwin had the symbol etched over his heart, Hanji’s on the bicep, and Levi proudly displayed the Fins of Freedom across his shoulder blades, taking up his entire upper and mid-back. They were a symbol of hope to all merkind, that one day, they would be able to see the vastness of the ocean again, and swim back up to the surface they had long since forgotten.

Watching Levi fight, Eren felt that hope.

**Author's Note:**

> I'M SORRY BUT THE FINS OF FREEDOM HAD TO BE A THING. Also half of these terrible ocean puns and jokes come from The Little Mermaid on Broadway. NO EXCUSE! I'm not sure if I'm going to continue this but drop me a line (snicker) if you think I should.


End file.
